The cult-sites of Peter and Paul at Rome in the first centuries of Christianity: From the written sources to the monumental remains

This paper aims to reconsider the available monumental data on the first installations attributed to the original burial places of Peter and Paul. These data reconstruct contexts of little architectural relevance, known and frequented only by members of the community: in fact, Gaius speaks about the two installations in the Vatican and on the Ostiense as sites well known to him, but that Proclus, despite knowing the Vatican and the Ostiense well, had never seen, and did not know about. These first specific spaces of community cult, among which the memoria apostolorum on the Via Appia must also be considered, are not very incisive and prominent in the topography, analogous to the many installations of other religious groups in the city. However, their creation must be related to the transition from a collegial government of presbyters to the monarchical episcopate (second half/end of the 2nd century), which had also led to the birth of the first collective cemeteries. The value of these first interventions of monumentalization is also recognized in their being the initial chapter of the whirlwind history, shared by the two sanctuaries on the apostolic tombs (which would lead to the birth of the civitas leoniana and Iohannipolis in the 9th century) and of the establishment of a complex ‘geography of apostolic cult’ in Rome.